Sentence Parsing Technique & Reading Comprehension

I wanted to share a general strategy I use on a daily basis to help me with reading comprehension that can be used by anyone from about high N5 / low N4 level onward, making it very approachable. I'm intentionally going to use a rather complex-looking example, as I wanted to walk through how even fairly difficult sentences can be tackled.

Example Sentence
その学説は世間では大変な人気だが, 学界では冷たくあしらわれている.

Step 1 – Chunking
I start by inserting separators between logical units of meaning (marked by one or more particles), 5 chunks in this case. Once this is done, you'd be surprised how much you can glean just by focusing on how the particles interact with one another:
その学説は・世間では・大変な人気だが・, 学界では・冷たくあしらわれている.

In this example, chunk 1 is clearly the context / topic of the sentence. Chunk 2 looks like it is a "setting" paired with a contrast marker (は). Chunk 3 ends with a "but". Chunk 4 sets up another contrast marker (は). Chunk 5 is of course our main adverb-modified final verb.

Step 2 – Assigning Meaning
Regardless of how much vocabulary you recognize immediately or not, this doesn't really matter. What matters is that you feel like there are valuable words in the sentence you want to remember and recognize in the future. Use high quality dictionary resources to assign your best approximations of what each chunk means. What follows are my choices:

1. that theory
2. in society
3. is extremely popular but
4. in the academic world
5. treated with disdain

Step 3 – Reading Chunks Aloud
Here's another really valuable step. Practice pronouncing one chunk (no visible furigana) until it rolls out of your mouth smoothly. Continue with each chunk separately, always looking back at the meaning of the chunk you assigned to bind what you're saying to what it means. Rinse and repeat until you've done this with all chunks (several times usually).

Step 4 – Reading Entirety Aloud
Now try and read the entire thing aloud multiple times until it rolls out smoothly. Consider returning maybe once later in the day.

That's pretty much it! I personally don't bother reviewing more than that, as I'd sooner go for volume and let reading be my SRS. Hope this helps :).